Self Beauty

For those who are reading this, you are probably wondering why I am posting this. I thought that it would be a good time to.. share. As we all know, girls are looking at magazines, only to compare a model's beauty with their own. This results in poor self esteem, especially when they do not meet the so called "standards" of the beauty community.

Well, I think it is time to break that.

Why am I posting? Well, I think it is time that we all sit back and find that beauty that we have (external, at the moment), and point it out. What do I want you to do? Find two things that you love about your appearance. It can be anything really, and share them with the whole forum. What do you say? Shall we help to spread a positive message?

What I Love about my Appearance:

1. My Scarring: I will be honest, I have quite a bit of scarring - some including some acne scars as well as an assortment of other things. However, I don't like hiding them at all. For me, it add a bit more character towards my face. It shows that I - like many people out there - am not perfect and therefore, I do not expect myself to be. I accept who I am and deal with it.

2. How Young I Look: I am twenty-five, I barely look like I am eighteen. I guess this is because of how well I have taken care of my face. I started to take care of it at a rather young age, only to improve my skin maintenance as I grew older.

Re: Self Beauty

1. My pasty white complexion. I struggled against this for so many years because tan is supposed to be "healthy, beautiful." That's fantastic for ladies with natural complexions in the tan range. I'm not one of them- and I've taken a lot of abuse (aka "owww... your legs are so white they hurt my eyes!). Now, my skin is healthy and undamaged from the sun. It also makes my (not so natual) bright red hair look like I was born with it.

2. How young I look/how great my skin is. Since I struggled against the pro-tan movement and have taken care of my skin, it looks amazing. I get carded regularly. I figure since since I only have one face, why not take care of it?

3. My awful eyesight. I've struggled with bad eyesight since I was literally 5 years old. I was ashamed of my thick glasses growing up and started wearing contacts at 12. Well, a few months ago, I learned that I'd done damage to my eyes by wearing super high strength contacts for decades with little break. It's been a rough couple of months (and learning how to do my makeup all over again since I'm legally blind without my glasses), but I appreciate the character that glasses add to my face.

Re: Self Beauty

Hi starletta, I started wearing glasses when I was 5 also! That's terrible about your eyes, I hope they are ok and that you can still get 20/20 with glasses. just curious, what types of contacts were you wearing? I remember long ago I had to get gas-permeable rigid ones (for some reason soft lenses wouldn't work with my prescription) which were super uncomfortable and I was always rubbing my eyes which caused scratches on my cornea! These days I'm able to use soft lenses, but my eyes still get itchy so I'm in glasses most the time. I don't mind wearing them to work anyways, makes me look more serious.

I wore daily disposable soft contacts for about 12-13 years, regular disposables before that. Since I need such a high power and regularly wore them for 16-20 hours per day, my eyes never got enough oxygen. It was incredible- I stopped having as many headaches when I switched.

Re: Self Beauty

I'm so nearsighted I'm practically legally blind. I have to take my glasses off to do my makeup, and this makes my eyeshadow look beautifully, perfectly blended every time. Until I put my glasses back on.

Re: Self Beauty

@garnett I love your answer on whether your haircolor is your's (or not). At 48, people always ask me if my red hair is my natural color. My response is, "Yes, it's natural....as natural as a bottle can get! I do have a wonderful hairstylist who re-creates my "natural" color. People who know me from years past would never guess my hair is "color enhanced" unless they saw my occassional roots.

Re: Self Beauty

I will say my "coloring". I have fair skin, dark hair, and blue eyes. People have always commented on the combination. Being 52, I have a little help from my colorist keeping my natural shade of dark brown. People ask me if that is my haircolor. I always answer "Of course it's mine, I paid for it!" LOL

I guess I would also want to say my "presence" meaning I have good posture, I make good eye contact with people and I tend to smile at people when they look back at me. I think I come across as being comfortable in my own skin. I think that most people who know me would say I have a good personality. This definitely affects how we look. I may not be a great beauty but I think the whole package, inside and out, makes me attractive in the sense that people are drawn to me. This is something that has developed over the years. I certainly wouldn't have said this about myelf when I was a young woman.

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1. My eyes. I have really pretty blue eyes that when I'm well rested or in a good mood are so vibrant. (When I'm tired and moody they are a light gray-blue, still pretty, just different)

2. My hair. It's long, thick, blonde & straight. I finally figured out how to get it to keep a curl, make it stick straight with out blow drying or using a flat iron, and how much moisture it needs.

I hear you on the looking young. I'm turning 30 next month & look like I'm 17. My boyfriend is 34 & looks his age. If I'm not wearing makeup & we're out together, he gets a lot of dirty looks. We've been together for 8 years, so he knows to always bring his ID when we go out in case we get carded for wine with dinner

Re: Self Beauty

It definitely can be annoying...like when I go buy makeup and they treat me like a kid "hi honey, first time getting makeup? for your age I'd stick with mascara and some gloss..." I'm a college student! But then, one day when everyone looks old, we'll be the lucky ones!

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bananachoox, its sweet what you said about OUR smile. Its true...its kind of funny but I always think about this line from The Twits, a book by Roald Dahl, which I read when I was younger -

“If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier until you can hardly bear to look at it.

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”

Re: Self Beauty

This is a very nice idea for a thread. While some people might think it sounds a bit vain, most people have certain features that bother them, so its a good reminder to appreciate the positive

1 - my widows peak. As a child, peers would comment about my unusual hairline, but I've come to like it. As roxystar4 says, it is me.

2 - my fair skin.from middle school thru high school, I'd try really hard tanning and all I got was freckles. I'm in college now and I'm coming to see the beauty in fair skin and dark brown hair with rosy lips. Its my look, and people say I look like snow white

3 - my cheekbones are always high and defined, even when I put on a few pounds after a vacation

4 - and like Mandra, I have a scar going down my cheek. It is barely noticable, but I kind-of like it

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1. my big brown eyes. Growing up my guy friends told that blue eyes are "prettier" than brown. I used to think my eyes were boring/not special but as I age, I like my brown eyes more and more. They are me.

2. My smile. When I'm not posing in pictures! But like my natural, laughing at something funny smile.

4. I used to think that I had an ugly complexion with pale skin and freckles. Now that I am 48 and looking around at others my age, I realize I am younger looking than them. The freckles that I once despised make me look youthful and the pale skin that has been protected from the sun shows less signs of sun damage.

I also think as we get older, we learn to accept ourselves and know that what we see on tv and magazines is unrealistic.